I've had a tremendous amount of respect for Mark Zuckerberg as a leader, and have gone out of my way to defend him in the past ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17128369 ). I always envisioned whatsapp as a defensive purchase that would stay true to its initial vision (perhaps being used to prop up their other products in an unintrusive manner). But this article makes me realize Mark is s a one-trick advertising…
Maybe I'm just not creative enough, but what is a better alternative? Let's say you have a subscriber model, but than what kind of world will it be where only the wealthy have access to these communication technologies and access to social information. Or you have a hybrid ad model with the ability to opt out by paying some fee. Than what kind of world will that be when privacy is a luxury item limited to how much yo…
Roughly $40 billion in revenue, divided by 2 billion users. Only the very poorest wouldn’t be able to afford it.